The King Without a Kingdom (38 page)

‘I will give myself up to you,’ says the king.

Throwing his battleaxe into the grass, he takes off his gauntlet and holds it out to the huge knight. And then, motionless an instant, eyes closed, he lets the defeat sink in.

But then around him the racket starts up again, he is jostled, pulled, crushed, shaken, suffocated. The twenty fellows shout all together: ‘I took him, I took him, it was I who took him!’ More than all the others, a Gascon shouts: ‘He is mine. I was the first to assail him. And you come along, Morbecque, when the deed is done.’ And Morbecque replies: ‘What are you proclaiming there, Troy? He gave himself up to me, not to you.’

Because it was sure to pay very well, the capture of the King of France, both in honour and in money! And everyone sought to cling on to him to secure their own rights. Seized by the arm by Bertrand of Troy, by the collar, the king ended up getting knocked over in his armour. They would have torn him to pieces.

‘Seigneurs, seigneurs!’ he shouted. ‘Take me courteously, would you, and my son as well, before my cousin the prince. Do not fight any longer over my capture. I am great enough to make you all rich.’

But they wouldn’t listen. They continued to shout: ‘It is I who took him. He is mine!’

And they fought amongst themselves, these knights, red-faced and iron claws drawn, they fought for a king like dogs for a bone.

Let us now go over to the side of the Prince of Wales. His good captain, John Chandos, had just joined him on a hillock which dominated a large part of the battlefield, and they had stopped there. Their horses, nostrils bloodshot, bits enveloped in frothy slaver, were covered in foam. They themselves were gasping for breath. ‘We could hear each other taking huge gulps of air,’ Chandos told me. The prince’s face was streaming beneath the steel camail attached to his helmet, which hung over his face and covered his shoulders, rose up and down with each intake of breath.

Before them, nothing but torn-apart hedges, crushed shrubs, devastated vines. Everywhere mounts and men slain. Here a horse in agony endlessly kicked in the air. There a suit of armour crawled. Elsewhere, three equerries carried the body of a dying knight to the foot of a tree. Everywhere, Welsh archers and Irish coutiliers stripped the corpses bare. One could still hear the clash of combat in some quarters. The English knights passed through the plain closing ranks on one of the last Frenchmen attempting to escape.

Chandos said: ‘Thank God, the day is ours, monseigneur.’

‘Yes indeed, by God it is. We have prevailed!’ answered the prince. And Chandos continued: ‘It would be good, I believe, that you stop here, and had your banner put up on this tall bush. In this way, your people, who are scattered far and wide, will rally around you. And you too could refresh yourself a little, as I see you are rather hot. There is no need to pursue them any more.’

‘I believe you are right,’ said the prince.

And while the lion and lily banner was being put up on a bush and the buglers were sounding with their trumpets the prince’s call to arms, Edward had his bascinet removed, shook out his blond hair, wiped his streaming moustache dry.

What a day! It has to be said that he had really given his all, galloping relentlessly to show himself to each troop, encouraging his archers, exhorting his knights, deciding on the places where reinforcements were to be directed, well, it was above all Warwick and Suffolk, his marshals, who decided; but he was always there to tell them: ‘Go on, you are doing well …’ In truth, he had taken only one decision himself, but a capital one, and which really deserved him all the day’s glory. When he had seen the disorder provoked in the banner of Orléans by nothing other than the backward surge of the French charge, he had immediately put some of his men back in the saddle to go and produce a similar effect in the battalion of the Duke of Normandy. He himself had entered into the fray on ten occasions. One had the feeling that he was everywhere. And everyone who rallied came to him to say: ‘The day is yours. The day is yours. It is a great date that peoples will remember. The day is yours, you have done wonders.’

His pavilion was quickly put up right there, his gentlemen of body and bedchamber hurrying to bring forward the cart, which had been hidden carefully out of the way, containing everything needed for his repast, chairs, tables, tableware, wines.

He couldn’t decide whether or not to get down from his horse, as if the victory was not truly won.

‘Where is the King of France, has anyone seen him?’ he asked his equerries.

The action had gone to his head. He covered the length and breadth of the hillock, ready for some supreme struggle.

And suddenly he noticed, overturned in the heath, a motionless suit of armour. The knight was dead, abandoned by his equerries, except for an old, wounded servant, who was hiding in a thicket nearby … the knight, his pennon: the arms of France in saltire gules.
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The prince had the dead knight’s bascinet removed. I’m afraid so, Archambaud … it is exactly what you are thinking; it was my nephew, it was Robert of Durazzo.

I am not ashamed of my tears. Admittedly, his own honour had driven him to a deed that the Church’s and my honour should have refused him. But I do understand him. And, he was valiant. Not a day goes by that I don’t pray to God to forgive him.

The prince ordered his equerries: ‘Put this knight on a targe, carry him to Poitiers and present him for me to the Cardinal of Périgord, and tell him that I salute him.’

And yes, that is how I found out that the victory was for the English. To think that in the morning, the prince was ready to negotiate, to return all of his spoils, to suspend fighting for seven years! He very much took me to task the following day, when we saw each other again in Poitiers. Ah! He didn’t mince his words. I had tried to serve the French, I had tricked him about their strength, I had brought to bear all the weight of the Church to make him come to terms. I could only answer him: ‘Fine prince, you exhausted all means to peace, for the love of God. And God’s will made itself known.’ That is what I told him.

But Warwick and Suffolk had arrived on the hillock, and with them Lord Cobham. ‘Do you have news of King John?’ the prince asked them.

‘No, not that we have witnessed, but we believe that he is dead or captured, as he did not leave with his battalions.’

Then the prince said to them: ‘Please, leave and ride to tell me the truth. Find King John.’

The English were scattered over two leagues all around, hunting down men, pursuing and crossing swords. Now that the day was won, every man was tracking down bounty for his own benefit. Why yes! Everything that a captured knight has on him belongs to his captor. And they were beautifully adorned, King John’s barons. Many of them had golden belts. Not to mention the ransoms of course, which would be haggled over and fixed according to the rank of the prisoner. The French are sufficiently vain to let them set the price themselves at which they estimate their worth. One could rely on their misplaced vainglory. Therefore, everyone could try their luck! Those who had had the good fortune to get their hands on John of Artois or the Count of Vendôme, or the Count of Tancarville, were entitled to dream of building themselves a castle. Those who had only seized a minor banneret or a simple bachelier
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could merely change the furniture in their great halls and offer their ladies a few dresses. And then there would be the prince’s gifts, in recognition of the heroic deeds and finest feats.

‘Our men are hunting the defeated up to the gates of Poitiers,’ Jean de Grailly, Captal
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of Buch, came to announce. One of the men from his banner, returning from there with four great prizes, not being able to take any more, told him that great abatis
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of people were forming, because the bourgeois of Poitiers had locked their doors; in front of those doors, on the road, horrible slaughter had taken place, and now the French were giving themselves up from the moment they saw an Englishman. Most ordinary archers had up to five or six prisoners. Never had such a disaster been heard of.

‘Is King John there?’ asked the prince.

‘Certainly not. They would have told me.’

And then, at the bottom of the hillock, Warwick and Cobham appeared once more, going on foot, their horses’ bridles over their arms, and trying to bring peace amongst twenty or so knights forming an escort behind them. In English, French and Gascon, these people were arguing with great gestures, miming the movements of combat. And before them, dragging his feet, went an exhausted man, a little unsteady, who, with his ungloved hand, held a child in armour by his gauntlet. A father and son walking side by side, both bearing on their chests slashed silk lilies.

‘Back; may nobody approach the king, unless requested to do so,’ shouted Warwick to the quarrellers.

And only then did Edward of Wales, Prince of Aquitaine, Duke of Cornwall, know, understand, embrace the immensity of his victory. The king, King John, the leader of the most populous and powerful nation in Europe. The man and the child walked towards him very slowly. Ah! This moment would remain for ever in the memory of men! The prince had the feeling that the whole world was watching him.

He signalled to his gentlemen to help him get down from his horse. His thighs felt stiff, his back too.

He stood on the threshold of his pavilion. The setting sun shot the copse through with golden rays. All of these men would have been surprised to be told that the hour of vespers was already past.

Edward held his hands out to the gift Warwick and Cobham were bringing him, to the gift of Providence. John of France, even stooped by adverse fortune, is taller than him. He responded to his victor’s gesture. And also held his two hands out, one gloved, one bare. They remained a moment like that, not embracing, simply clasping each other’s hands. And then Edward made a gesture that would touch the hearts of all of the knights. He was the son of a king; his prisoner was a crowned king. So, still holding him by the hand, he bowed his head deeply, and made to bend his knee. Honour be to unfortunate valour. All that glorifies the defeated further glorifies our victory. There were lumps in the throats of these hard men.

‘Please take a seat, sire my cousin,’ said Edward, inviting King John to enter his pavilion. Allow me to serve you some wine and spices. And please forgive that, for supper, I make you eat such a simple meal. We will sit down to eat shortly.’

As they were busying themselves putting up a great tent on the hillock, the prince’s gentlemen knew their duty. And the cooks always have some pâtés and meats in their coffers. What was missing, they would go and fetch from the larders of the monks of Maupertuis. The prince also says: ‘Your relatives and barons will be most welcome to join us. I will have them called. And bear that we bandage that wound on your forehead that shows your great courage.’

I
T MAKES ONE THINK
of the fate of nations to tell you all that, which has just taken place, and which marks a great change, a great turning point for the kingdom, precisely here of all places, precisely here in Verdun. Why? Ah! My nephew, because the kingdom was born here, because what can be called the kingdom of France stems from the treaty signed right here after the Battle of Fontenoy, then
Fontanetum
, you know very well, we went through it, between the three sons of Louis the Pious. Charles the Bald’s part was poorly defined, moreover without looking at the true nature of the ground. The Alps, the Rhine should have been the natural borders of France, and it is not common sense that Verdun and Metz be lands of the empire. Now, what will become of France tomorrow? How will France be divided up? Perhaps France will be no more in ten or twenty years, certain are seriously wondering. They see a large English piece, and a Navarrese piece running from one sea to the other with all of the Langue d’Oc, and a kingdom of Arles rebuilt in the sphere of influence of the empire, with Burgundy in addition. Everyone dreams of carving up the weakest part.

To tell you my opinion on the matter, I don’t believe it at all, because the Church, as long as I and several others of my ilk will live, will not allow this dismemberment. And the people remember too well and are too used to a great and united France. The French will soon see that they are nothing if no longer a kingdom, if they are no longer united in a single state. But there will be difficult rivers to cross. You will perhaps be faced with painful choices. Always choose, Archambaud, with the kingdom in mind, even if it is commanded by a bad king, because the king can die, or be dislodged, or held in captivity, but the kingdom goes on.

The grandeur of France came to light on that evening in Poitiers, in the very consideration that the victor, dazzled by his fortune and scarcely believing it, lavished on the vanquished. A strange table indeed was the one set up after the battle in the middle of a wood in Poitou, between the walls of red drapery. In the places of honour, lit by candles, the King of France, his son Philip, Monseigneur Jacques de Bourbon, who had become duke since his father had been killed during the day, Count John of Artois, the Counts of Tancarville, Étampes, Dammartin, and also the Sires of Joinville and Parthenay, served in silver; and spread out over the other tables, between English and Gascon knights, the most powerful and the richest of the remaining prisoners.